


Arrival

by nevereatdirt



Series: NEDWrites Oneshots [28]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dream Bubbles, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 13:46:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2852960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevereatdirt/pseuds/nevereatdirt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Dirk Strider, and you're later than anticipated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arrival

 You know it can't be him. You're not supposed to meet him. At all. He's supposed to be some kind of untouchable figure in the past. A man you never could live up to, because the expectations you've always thought he'd have for you were so high. You've lived your life wanting to meet him. And there he is. Standing on what you think is the memory of Houston more than four hundred years before you were born with a cigarette between his lips as he checks his watch.

He's not as tall as you'd thought he'd be.

But in a determined trance you trail after him, needing to know more about him. Needing to collect the data to know just what kind of man he really was. You've met the alternate kid version of him. And you've met the alternate adult version of you. Both were more than you could have expected. Strange in such similar ways but still so different. Duke, the alternate you, was nothing like you would have expected. You assume that if you'd grown up around people or were raised by hospitable Southerners you maybe would have been more like him. It's an idea you aren't opposed to, but it's also one that leaves you unsettled.

Dave as cool as the kid is, is still just that. He's a kid. He's a kid that was thrown into the same shit heap that you and your friends were thrown into, but in another reality. He's your age, yes. But he still seems so young to you. Maybe it's his god tier powers that have slowed time down for him. Or maybe you've just grown up too much in your short sixteen years. Either could be possible. But it doesn't change one simple fact.

He isn't your Bro.

Your Bro had left you an entire, prepared apartment for you. You still don't know how he found some of these things or even managed to keep the apartment safe for _centuries_ , but he did. How you'll never know. You can't ask him if that even is him. It seems too hard and cold. Putting reality into the shifting, melting landscape of the dreambubbles and the deathscape just makes it all seem so much more real, and you aren't sure you can handle that with everything happening in the waking world.

You flashstep quietly through the memory of a crowd, feeling strangely claustrophobic in such an open setting. You aren't afraid of the openness of this space you're made nervous by the tight quarters. You've never had that in your life. Not like any of your friends who had people, or animals, or carapacians to keep them company.

You had your robots, and the seagulls that occasionally flew past you. You miss it sometimes, and even your dreambubbles never capture the realness of it, just like they never really capture the realness of anything or anyone for you. You feel like somehow these places are broken for you and only you, but you never broach the subject.

Even now as you follow after your Bro the thought stirs in your mind. _What if he's just an illusion here to spite you? You've thought about him enough, so it is a possibility._

You can't think that way. You push it away, away, away until finally you think that you've caught up to him at your building. Or what you think is your building. Following behind him quietly as he goes in, you walk up the stairs. All the way to the top. You'd never realized just how fucking high up this building was before. How deep _was_ the Terran Ocean? You don't really want to know. Not deep compared to the old oceans, but enough to have killed everyone off apparently.

Though when you finally, _finally_ reach the top floor he walks into the apartment you've known through your teen years and you're quick to step inside.

It looks mostly like you remember it from a young age, in all honesty. He'd set up the building for you, after all. Starting six floors down he'd fixed apartments for you and made sure that each had what a growing boy would need or want. From food to pornography you were literally set for life. But as he sits on the futon you rarely use you notice the weariness in his shoulders and the way he hangs his head.

In his hands you see a tiny pair of shades that look too much like yours for your own comfort, and that's when you know what day it is.

Quietly, you walk behind him, knowing full well what he could do to you if he tried. But you aren't quiet enough to avoid a fully trained Strider it seems, even if you'd like to think that you are one yourself.

“The fuck you been following me for.” His voice is flat and emotionless, though it sounds like it's more from strain than anything else. He knew you were following, and yet he didn't try to stop you? Seems like a bad plan to you in all honesty. “If you're one of the traitors working for her, don't even try to fuck with me today. I've just gotten some _very_ bad news.”

Standing stock still you just stare. This was it. The memory of the day you were supposed to arrive. Of course it isn't yours. It's his. Somehow you've been drawn into his dreambubble, which almost seems more like a nightmare than anything. You don't say anything. You make no move from where you are, and you're almost more afraid when he doesn't move or speak than when he threatened you.

The silence seems to last too long for his taste, though, and soon he's on his feet, rising like a big cat and poised to lunge until he sees your face.

If you hadn't seen it first hand you never would have guessed that the calm looking man from all of the photos and old movies you'd seen was the same one snarling at you like a wild animal. Teeth bared and brow furrowed, he shakes his head. “Get the fuck out of here.”

You look around and point to yourself, confused as to just what to do. “I...”

“You fuckin' heard me you demon spawn lookalike. Get the fuck out of here. You're one of her weird Imperial Clones sent back to fuck with me. I've seen your kind before, kid. I've killed your kind and made sure that none of them could ever spawn here again.” The shades are tucked neatly into his sylladex with mumbled words you barely hear, and his hands are clenched in a way that can only signify that he's go to pull out his strife specibus.

“I'm not a fucking clone!” You stop and furrow your own brow as you think about what you've said. “Well I mean I _am_ a clone, but not one of those!”

He's in your face and you can feel the rage emanating from him. “Do you know what I”ll do if you're lying?”

You shake your head and just shrug. “I have no idea.” Because really you don't. You've never heard stories about clones approaching him, though maybe it's only ever been in his dreams. There's still so much you don't really know and _can't_ really know about the past, even though you've watched so much of it as you grew.

Though your answer seems to entertain him at the least. “Smart kid.” He straightens up and, though he's a few inches taller than you, he's still shorter than you'd thought. Maybe he was just one of those people that photographed and looked taller. Jake said you were one when you'd first met him face to face. Even if the Brobot was specifically designed to be you, sans actual life.

But it doesn't matter. None of that matters when you have your Bro smirking down at you in something other than videos that you'd grown up watching or old clips from the news or even just photographs. The smirk is much more subtle in real life, though you can see the hints of age creeping along the corners of his mouth. “You're just going to take that as an answer.” the words come out shocked in a strange way. You can't even _ask_ because you already know that's what he's done.

The emotion he'd shown you earlier was a test, you realize. One of many that you would have grown up with had you arrived on time. It scares you to know that he and the alternate version of you apparently have very similar training tactics, and you aren't sure if the outburst brings you closer or pushes you further away from him with his face set into a trained pokerface the way it is now. “Well of course. Any idiot would know that if you _knew_ what I was going to do to you, you'd have been warned. But if you're really you then you'd have no idea what it was I was talking about and that whole outburst would have made no sense. Though then again it would have, wouldn't t?”

The thought process is remarkably simple, really. If you were one of those clones, you would know to watch out for him because he could kill you. Cornered as you were, you would have gone for honesty, though it isn't always in your best nature. Not having any idea what would happen, you've passed another test. You don't know how many you'll be going through tonight. “A fair point.” You cross your arms over your chest, matching his stance as he stares down at you. “But I did know what the outburst was over. And what the bad news was. Or I can guess at it anyway.”

Your eyes flit over him, trying to guess what it is he'll do from the way he moves but he's the hardest person you've ever had to read. You think it's probably his shades. They do make it hard to really see what someone is doing. “Then go ahead, little man. _Guess_.” The word is a challenge and the words little man seem strange and foreign on his lips. He doesn't seem the type to give a nickname like that, while at the same time that's the point isn't it? The layers of irony equalizing down to a personality that's more genuine that anyone really has a right to be.

At least that's what you've read about him. He's a good man, allegedly. This memory of his seems warped into something that you would want. A puzzle to figure out. A game to master. Maybe the dreambubbles do have a different effect on your perception than your friends'. You stare up at him, eyes locked determinedly on his you think, and say what you know is true. “This is the day I was supposed to arrive. Well, obviously I _have_ arrived. But I mean the past me. Baby me.”

He gives you a small smile and it suits his face more than the smirk did you think. It softens him to a more human figure. To the one that you've seen in your photos and would imagine tucking you in at night when you were little and sometimes when you were older and had had a bad day. “That's right.” He pulls the shades from his sylladex and hands them to you. “Spose these might be a little archaic compared to what you've thought up now, but these are yours. No need for me to have 'em. Already know I'm dead and you ain't ever coming.”

The words are harsh and bitter, but you suppose he has a right to be. He'd been prepared for this moment for his entire life and now temporal shenanigans have fucked that over. He turns his back to you and sits down on the couch, arms draped over the back as he makes himself comfortable in the place you would one day call home. “So what brings you here, Dirk? Come to see what the late, great Dyre Strider was really like?” You move to sit next to him, making sure that there's space between you in case he doesn't like his bubble invaded, but his head snaps to you. “You can't just be here to tell me that you're sorry for me. Don't treat me like some kid, this ain't even the right universe for that.”

He laughs after the statement and you really can't help but to laugh along with him. It's so much lower in person, really. You grew up listening to the sound of his voice as he rapped terrible stories to you and explained how to build your first robot with more swearing than was probably good for a six year old. But he was almost there for you. You could see and hear him but you could never touch or even smell or _taste_. He's in front of you now, though. He's real and, though not alive or really in the flesh, he's still _there_. He still has the same scent you'd assume he had in life and you're left with a sudden urge to just be close to someone for really the first time.

You've discovered that your isolation has left you with a few issues with being touched. The cold steely arms of a robot can only do so much to soothe an upset child after all. But despite this you inch closer to him, and he seems to notice.

He rests a solid hand in your hair, effectively flattening hours of hard work, but he runs his fingers through it slowly. The touch makes you sigh and you slump over just a little. No one else has ever touched your hair. Or scalp. Even when you'd been with Jake you made sure that he didn't. You didn't want him to fuck it up.

Now it doesn't seem to matter that it's been mussed at all. The two of you just sit in silence with his hand in your hair and your head now pressed lightly to his chest. You've needed this. You've needed it for so long. All the rage and bile he'd spilled toward something that looked like you feels distant. Like some sleepy memory that you don't ever want to see again. This, though. This feels real and solid and you note with a smile that he has a scent something like apples and felt, though there's also something distinctly like orange soda in there that makes you feel weirdly at ease.

He's familiar and distant at the same time and, you realize, he's never seen the real you before. He's seen clones and maybe a passing version of your alternate self, but never you. You've grown up with his face and body and voice surrounding you like some blanket of fraternal affection, and now you realize how much he really must care.

It's a long shot, but you lean up and press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

He doesn't move, or say anything. He just keeps his hand in your hair, though you can almost swear that he's smiling as you drift to sleep.

When you awaken you're back on your game's planet. The gas mask keeping you alive rests soundly on your face and you feel like you've been punched in the stomach. Your dream was disturbingly real this time.

Maybe the next time you see him, he'll know it's really you and know just why you're searching for him without needing to resort to anger.

But then again, dreams do funny things to people.


End file.
